Give or take a day

Much to report for day 4. I've spent the last few minutes trying to figure out how to post photos in an aesthetically pleasing way but it's proving to be too difficult for this weary traveler. So that will have to wait until tomorrow. But just some highlights:

We have already brought "sexy back" a number of times thanks to Julia Johannsen's musical contributions to our drive (A little JT goes a long way). Thanks to Julia we were also introduced to DJ Alibi, Koop, and a few others. Thank you, Julia!!! We haven't gotten to them all yet, but we're looking forward to all the CDs!

On the topic of my broadening my musical horizons, Alison's contributions have not gone unnoticed. Erasure and New Order have been gracing my 6-CD changer with their presence and have been responsible for getting us through some pretty flat states. Speaking of which, Ohio stretched further than either of us thought would be the case. That doesn't bode well for South Dakota, but eventually we crossed into Indiana and the central time zone (in Michigan City) and then somehow missed the sign welcoming us into Illinois. But we certainly didn't miss Chicago. We stopped for about an hour since Alison had never been. We parked near Millennium Park, had a photo op at the Cloud Gate (or "the bean" as I like to call it), and happened upon the Chicago Jazz Festival. After a failed attempt at locating a Chipotle Mexican Grill in town, we got back in the car and booked it to Madison. Megan Schultz and Justin Miranda (friends and co-workers from PIH) have warmly welcomed us into their home. Their friend, Ryan, joined us for dinner at The Weary Traveler (a fitting choice), where we also met up with Bryn Mawr alumna, Nicki Zelenski and Wash U alum, Dave Strasfeld.

While dining on arguably THE BEST burger I have ever had, Megan mentioned that if we wanted to stay an extra day then we could go with them tomorrow to Noah's Ark, the country's largest water park. Seeing as how Alison had been talking about water parks ever since we left Boston, I suggested to Megan that she ask Alison about what we should do. I have never seen such joy on someone's face. How could we NOT agree to stay? It literally brought Alison to tears. And so we're going to be adding one more day to our trip.

And so with that, I will sign off and get some rest before our big day in the sun. But first, a few travel tips. Sugar snap peas are a superior road trip snack to baby carrots, and the Massachusetts Fast Lane pass works in Indiana and Illinois (though be warned that Ohio has no such automated toll system). Also, the NPR map is a lifesaver, though we missed some key programming since we seemed to travel west too fast to keep up with the stations (in other words, the station would get too much static before we could hear the rest of the program and the next station isn't playing the same show).